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Welltower remains interested in making a play for fellow real estate investment trust Healthcare Realty Trust after making an all-cash bid for it earlier this year.
Welltower, a REIT that owns senior housing, medical facilities and medical offices, made a $4.8B all-cash bid for Healthcare Realty Trust in February, The Wall Street Journal reports. The offer came soon after Healthcare Realty agreed to a merger with Healthcare Trust of America.
Welltower offered to pay the $163M termination fee that the Nashville-based Healthcare Realty would’ve had to pay for backing out of the $10B, mostly stock deal, but Healthcare Realty’s board decided it wasn’t a better offer than the merger and rejected it in March.
Welltower’s offer was for $31.75 a share, and it could make another offer, the WSJ reports. An acquisition would give Welltower a deeper medical office presence, an area it has already been growing in recent months.
In August, Welltower bought six medical office buildings in New York City via a joint venture with Aspect Health, paying $98M. It has also been picking up senior housing at a fast clip; last summer it spent $1.58B on a portfolio of 86 senior housing sites from Holiday Retirement. In November, it bought 14 senior housing properties managed by Watermark Retirement.
“Since pivoting to offense 13 months ago, Welltower is pleased to have executed on its value-driven investment thesis, largely through granular and off-market transactions completed at a significant discount to estimated replacement cost,” CEO Shankh Mitra said at the time, Senior Housing News reported.
Healthcare Realty’s shares jumped to $28.55 Monday, per the WSJ, an increase of 5.4%. Healthcare Trust’s fell by 1.6% to $29.96.
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